Eye Contact and Blushing
I’ve always had trouble with eye contact.
Eye Contact: an event when two people look at each other’s eyes at the same time. It is a form of nonverbal communication and has a large influence on social behavior. Frequency and interpretation of eye contact vary between cultures and species. Eye aversion is the avoidance of eye contact. Wikipedia.org
When I was younger and also in the not so distant past, I didn’t like looking at people straight in the eye. I felt too shy and I felt a lot of nervousness/anxiety if I made too much eye contact. I think sometimes I would even blush if I made eye contact with people (it didn’t matter how old or what gender they were). Then I started realizing that eye contact (at least in American culture) is extremely important. Interview? Definitely need to have eye contact. Meeting new people? Gotta have it. Asking someone a question? Should have it. Etc. Without eye contact, people might think you don’t respect them, don’t have enough interest in them, or are obviously too shy and not suitable for the job (or whatever else that requires some friendliness and boldness). So I kind of made it a silent goal in my head to make more eye contact with people (and hopefully not blush as much!).
Somewhere along the way, I definitely improved while meeting or talking to people. However, even at this point I still had some trouble. I got pretty good and to the point where I could look a person straight in the eyes for however long they would talk. But then I realized that most people don’t prefer hardcore eye contact (unless you’re like, proposing or something, haha). They prefer to make eye contact and then break it off and then glance back occasionally. Then at other times with other people, I can’t look into their eyes for too long or else I get uncomfortable and I have to look away a lot.
Nowadays, it still kind of makes me nervous when I’m quietly listening to a lecture and the teacher locks their eyes with mine for some very long seconds. lol. I wonder why that is. Maybe teachers just make me nervous in general? haha.
Blushing—I blush a lot! I don’t know, I blush at almost everything. I had a huge problem with this when I was younger. If I had to present in front of a classroom, I would burn up. Or if I was talking to a boy, I would turn red too (which was weird because it wasn’t as if I was infatuated or even uncomfortable with any of them).
As for today, I blush when a teacher somehow points me out in front of everyone in the classroom. I hate drawing attention towards myself. And obviously, I’ll blush at anything remotely embarrassing.
I dunno. I always made mental notes about this stuff in my mind but I guess today I wanted to write it out. It’s surprising how I write about really random topics sometimes.
August 6th, 2007 at 6:41 am
I like to stare at my professors while they're giving lectures, especially when it's a boring class. It's something to do, heh ^^
August 6th, 2007 at 9:41 pm
I used to be embarassed with eye contact too. If someone make eye contact with me I just turn away. But now it's different since I know it's very important in communicating with the world. And I think hardcore eye contact may make the person you are talking to think that you have a special feeling for him
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August 6th, 2007 at 10:22 pm
Yeah, I was the same way. I never looked people in the eyes, but I guess I made a subconscious effort to change that and it comes naturally to me now. But I still blush like crazy. And it's horrible isn't it? I hate that feeling. Cold water on your cheeks helps, if you have the opportunity. I still blush at work sometimes though when I'm talking to unfamiliar people. I wonder why that is…
Glad I'm not the only one though.
April 25th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
I enjoyed your article. Thanks for sharing your experiences.
I used to make strong eye contact with boys that I was trying to attract. I didn't realize that they would interpret it as a sexual come-on. I was too young to care about *** and have never really had a very strong interest in it. But I had more than one boy tell me that I had "bedroom eyes" or, worse, "f**k me eyes". After those comments, and after going through many violent abuses in my earlier years, I have a great deal of trouble maintaining eye contact with anyone. It's almost as if I believe they can feel my shame and see the abuse I've gone through. I know that at a soul level, they probably can. It's funny, I don't have this problem with everyone. I'm not sure what the difference is in the people that I can look at and those that I cannot. Actually, now that I think of it, I believe it may be that I can make eye contact with women, but not men, because I believe that men will perceive it as sexual interest. This includes my husband of five years, believe it or not! People say I have pretty eyes. I think men don't realize that my eyes look like this all the time, not just when I'm looking at them! lol. Thanks for helping me figure it out!